


Breathing (Invading)

by SincerelyChaos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (Not in the usual sense), Breathplay, Codependency, Dubious Ethics, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:48:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7851343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyChaos/pseuds/SincerelyChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they fall asleep together, John’s hand is always resting across Sherlock’s throat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing (Invading)

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes when I have insomnia, I settle for telling myself stories until I fall asleep.
> 
> Sometimes those stories won't leave my head the following day.
> 
> ***
> 
> pennypaperbrain used her usual magic (also referred to as 'talent') to greatly improve this particular result of my insomnia.
> 
> (Previously posted - unbetad, unedited - in the Haphazard ficlet collection)

 

 

When they fall asleep together, John’s hand is always resting across Sherlock’s throat.

Sherlock will be on his back with John by his side, their bodies pressed together, John’s arm on Sherlock’s sternum and John’s hand applying the slightest hint of pressure to Sherlock’s windpipe.

Physically, it's restricting. On a higher, intellectual, level, it's nothing of the kind.

 

 

At first, John had seemed hesitant when Sherlock took hold of his hand and positioned it carefully so that John's palm rested just below Sherlock’s Adam’s apple, John's fingers slightly curled around Sherlock's throat. But then Sherlock had slid much closer to John, and John had let his objections give way.

That had been a few weeks ago, just as they were drifting off to sleep, sore and breathless after that thing they now did; that thing they still had no words for. Or only the words that were required to negotiate (something Sherlock found superfluous but John insisted on) some limits to what they did to each other, physically.

( _As if there was any kind of framework that could ever contain all the things that Sherlock wanted to do to John and have John do to him - physically or mentally._ )

It’s only been weeks, but what had started out as carnal, delightfully depraved, has rapidly progressed into something far more all-consuming and invasive, just as Sherlock had known it would; just as he had planned.

 

 

It's got nothing to do with oxygen deprivation; the sole weight of a hand is hardly sufficient to disturb airflow at all. No, for Sherlock, it’s to do with the hope of a rarer sort of invasion, and for John, it’s about wordlessly accepting and indulging Sherlock’s needs, just like he does in almost every other aspect of their life.

John thinks that this is the only way Sherlock can (under-)stand the physical intimacy of being tangled up together without the pretense of fucking, of dominance or of pain; the proximity of their sleeping position born solely out of need for those features to worm their way into every aspect of their relationship. John could not be more wrong, but Sherlock refrains from correcting this specific assumption.

 

 

Sherlock is more than satisfied with how fast John accepted the direction their relationship would inevitably take. In many ways, what they now have is as close to happiness as someone like Sherlock is ever likely to experience.

John will happily break- _bruise_ -asphyxiate Sherlock almost as completely, relentlessly and methodically as Sherlock needs him too, and he will then taste Sherlock's tears instead of drying them. John will give of himself, with abandon. In between their brutal, slow encounters, John will let Sherlock invade his every thought and every aspect of his life, let Sherlock insinuate himself into his mind as well as his daily routines, his work and his… sentiment. It's total disregard for personal safety, and it's just as brilliant and enigmatic as everything about John Watson is.

There's only one thing that really causes Sherlock frustration.

While John readily accepts the concept of mutual and total invasion when it comes to fucking, to personal space and almost any other aspect of life, there are times when John goes where Sherlock can’t follow. And while it’s hardly fair to blame John for this, Sherlock can’t bear it.

Therefore, when he falls asleep at night with John’s body pressed close against his, it’s always with the hope that, for once, John won’t eventually move around in his sleep, disentangling himself from Sherlock. That John's hand will stay where it was placed as they settled for sleep, and that if John then has one of his - now less frequent - nightmares, his hand will still be resting over Sherlock’s trachea. Sherlock imagines that if he’s ever lucky enough to experience such a splendid thing, the terrified thrashing will not cause John to lose his grip, but tighten it, his fingers clenching harder and harder around Sherlock’s throat, and for once - finally - Sherlock will be just as breathless, just as affected as John, and it will all be perfect. He will finally be able to be part of John’s past, of the parts John never tells him about.

Then Sherlock will never have to be denied that part of John again.

 

 

Sherlock smiles, relaxing into the safe almost-pressure against his trachea, silently hoping that this will be a night of terrors, with images of helplessness, bullets and sand darkened by dried blood flooding John's unconscious mind.

It will be a final invasion, the erasure of anything resembling a line between Sherlock's person and John's. One more battlefield to share.

It will be better than breathing ever was.

 

 


End file.
